The PHS MoU Groupfs Working Group Meeting and Seminar were held for a period from June 28 (Mon) to 30 (Wed), 2004 at Xiamen Mandarin Hotel in China. This time there were quite many participants from the Chinese members and it shows very high expectations to the PHS in China. The summary of the meeting is as follows.

BWG (Business Working Group)

     The meeting was presided by Mr. Satoh, BWG Chairperson. Mr. Ted Dean was nominated and approved for BWG Vice-Chairperson which has been vacant until then. Mr. Dean is the Managing Director of Beijing based research firm BDA China and has wide connections among the Chinese government, telecommunications industry, equipment vendors etc. so that his strong assistance to the PHS MoU Groupfs future activities in China can be expected.

     New BWG Vice-Chairperson Mr. Dean made a presentation about updated PHS market in China as follows.

- The number of PHS subscribers in China has exceeded 53 millions at the end of May, 2004. The market is steadily growing with the service opened in Beijing and Shanghai. On the other hand, 3G license grant is expected to be delayed due to the late development of chips and terminals so that the present best possible estimation would be in the late 2005. This may give more possibility of future development to the PHS. -

MoU Indian Chapter (agreement signed)

     In order to be able to deal with the promising Indian market, the PHS MoU Group has signed an agreement with the PHS MoU Indian Chapter in May, 2004. We are hoping that it will play an important role in getting frequency allocation, conducting trials, making domestic standardization etc. with the launch of the PHS service in India.

MoU China Chapter (being planned)

     Because there was a problem in SMS (Short Messaging Service) specification standardization in China, itfs required to provide an opportunity of discussing such issue for the PHSfs further spread there. The PHS MoU Group is considering that the China Chapter is necessary to be established. This issue was to be discussed further because there were many participants who approved the necessity of this chapter. There was also an opinion that the Chinese PHS service providers may be necessary to join the PHS MoU Group.

Cell Planning Seminar in China

     Through an information exchange with the Chinese network operators in the past three months, it turned out to be an urgent need to improve the existing network quality in order to reduce the PHS subscribersf complaints. It was presented that the PHS MoU Group is planning to conduct a cell planning seminar in China for better network coverage. (The presentation on the summary of the cell planning was made by DDI POCKET, Inc. (DDI POCKET) at the June 30 Seminar Session.)

Location-based Information Service

     As for the Japanese PHS location-based information service, it was presented that therefs a trial plan of such service in China as well. (The presentation relating to this was made by LOCUS Corporation (LOCUS) at the June 30 Seminar Session.)

TWG (Technical Working Group)

     TWG meeting was held on the second day June 29 (Tue), 2004. Mr. Fujii of DDI POCKET, TWG Vice-Chairperson, presided the meeting in place of absent Mr. Chika of DDI POCKET, TWG Chairperson.
     In the morning, according to the previous TWGfs discussion at the 16th General Meeting, five Ad-hoc Groupsf activities made by e-mails etc. until now were reported.
     First TWG Vice-Chairperson explained the basic objectives of the TWG. TWGfs mission is to standardize the PHSfs technical specifications which at present differ by each equipment vendor in order to improve the PHS subscribersf conveniences as well as to assist the PHSfs future steady growth.

Ad-hoc 1 :	Packet Data Communications (Chairperson : Mr. Katoh, DDI POCKET, Inc.) To open TI (see the definition below) within about two weeks.
Ad-hoc 2 :	Browser (Chairperson : Mr. Yamakami, ACCESS Co., Ltd.) Draft has already been distributed to the members, however, the discussion seemed to be not enough so that itfs to be continued a little further. The necessity of the cooperation with the network operators was also requested.
Ad-hoc 3 :	Wake on Ring (Chairperson : Mr. Ohkubo, AICON Inc.) - the same as Ad-hoc 1 -
Ad-hoc 4 :	SMS (Chairperson : Mr. Chika, DDI POCKET, Inc.) This issue was to be discussed further including the request for the network operators to give their specifications to the PHS MoU Group.
Ad-hoc 5 :	SIM Card (Chairperson : Mr. Katoh, DDI POCKET, Inc.) Until now the concept of the R-SIM (Radio-Subscriber Identification Module) proposed by DDI POCKET has been studied and still some more time is necessary to finalize this TI. The study of an original SIM card used for the GSM is required from now on, accordingly itfs to be discussed by handing the Chairperson over to Mr. Chan of IfM Technologies Ltd.

     The following Ad-hoc Groups were newly established in relation to the TWGfs future activities.
gCell Planningh, gLocation-based Serviceh gHigh Speed Datah, gNew Voice Codech, gHigh Power PS, CSh, and gPush to Talkh

     In the middle of the meeting, the PHS MoU Group secretariat explained an overall definition of the documents. The PHS MoU Group has three technical documents classifications TI, TS and TR and their definition is as follows.

TI (Technical Information) :	To be basically opened by its technology holder.
TR (Technical Report) :	The documents prepared to be the TS or its preliminary. Or technical reports studied by the PHS MoU Group.
TS (Technical Specification) :	The PHS MoU Groupfs recommended specifications to be basically followed by its members or interested parties.

     The morning activities report was followed by the afternoon lecture by Mr. William Chang/IfM Technology on the SIM Card relating to the Ad-hoc 5fs activity. (Refer to the presentation materials.)

Day 3 : Seminar Session

1)LOCUS Location Platform :
    By Mr. Koshima, LOCUS Corporation
    (Refer to a separate article.)

2)PHS Cell Planning (Extracts) :
    By Mr. Kamimura, DDI POCKET, Inc.
    (Refer to the presentation materials.)

3)Introduction of net optimization service:
    By Couei Corporation

     Finally, in the wrap-up of the meeting, participantsf impressions to this meeting as well as their demands for the PHS MOU Groupfs future activities were presented. Among those, a demand for further strong cooperation with the network operators was the first as expected.